I wish I felt the same. Tears blurred my vision. The little boy disappeared in a nimbus of light. The path curved, he was lost to sight.
The valley would remain inviolate, the water would stay clear, the lake would welcome the deer to drink in the early morning mist, the mountains would protect the valley, and my son would be safe here until I could come get him.
Chapter Eight
We headed north again. Alexander had decided to take the fortress of Aornos, despite the fact that it was invincible.
But before that, we had to cross a valley controlled by a village hostile to Alexander. I have no idea why they decided to resist us. It’s true that Alexander didn’t have his whole army with him, but he had enough. Plus we didn’t want to fight. We wanted to go to the sacred mountains. But as we arrived in the valley we were attacked.
Of course, Alexander wasn’t taken by surprise. Craterus had spent four weeks scouting out the area, and his spies all knew what was waiting for us. A queen ruled the village. She sent her mercenaries out to confront Alexander.
After thinking about it, when everything was finished, I came to the only obvious conclusion: the mercenaries had been getting too strong for the queen’s taste, or she had no wish to pay them any more, and she used Alexander’s army as a way to rid herself of them.
She would still be queen, her city would be spared, its people unhurt. However, she had to rid herself of twenty thousand hired soldiers, so she ordered them to attack us.
The fight was one-sided and bloody. After five hours the mercenaries surrendered and sued for peace. Most of them expressed the wish to join Alexander’s army.
Alexander pulled back to the far side of the valley, away from the battlefield, and set up his tent, getting ready to parley. Everything seemed to be going as normal. The fighting was over, the wounded were being carried to the infirmaries, and the diplomats and scribes were getting parchments ready and sharpening their reeds.
The talks usually started as soon as the sun touched the horizon. Alexander had bathed and was sitting behind his table. The beeswax candles I’d made were burning brightly. I was quite proud of them. We waited. The chief of the mercenaries had promised to come himself.
Meanwhile, the mercenaries camped on a small hill not far away. Their campfires flickered orange in the dusk. The sounds of women’s voices and children laughing or crying floated upon the evening air, mingling with the moans and screams of the wounded and dying. The air stank with the smell of burning flesh as Usse and the doctors cauterized wounds. There had been no casualties on our side. We were in a good mood.
I lit a stick of incense and nursed Chiron on the bed behind drawn curtains. The night advanced uneasily in the valley. Alexander got up and started pacing. Something didn’t seem right. The sun went down and still no one arrived. Outside the tent, the smoky air turned red with the sun’s last rays, then night fell. Alexander’s guards shifted uneasily, their armour clinking softly.
We looked at each other. Alexander’s generals had started to arrive, ready to parley. The chief of the opposing forces should have been here already. A strange feeling prickled our skin.
Suddenly a scream rang out. Then there came a loud tumult and more yelling. Alexander cursed and ran out of the tent. I put Chiron in his hammock, went to the tent flap, and looked out. The night had dissolved into confusion and noise. Men ran back and forth, snatching up their weapons and shields. The hilltop where the mercenaries camped was strangely dark, but horrible screams and cries told me what was happening.
I stuffed my fist into my mouth and backed into the tent. Nassar, Alexander’s scribe and translator, stood up, his narrow face dark with anger. ‘Treason!’ he cried. ‘They’ve attacked us!’
‘Hush!’ I said, ‘No, I don’t think so. Listen, what do you hear?’ My throat hurt. I wanted to scream.
He cocked his head. In the candlelight his eyes glittered. ‘I hear screaming.’
‘Do you hear the sound of metal striking metal? Do you hear the battle cries of men?’
‘No,’ he grew very still. ‘I hear the screams of women and children. I hear the wind strong in the trees. I hear the cries of men, but they are not battle cries. They are begging for mercy.’
‘May the gods hear them,’ I whispered.
‘Because Iskander’s men will not,’ finished Nassar.
We stood, shoulder to shoulder, until the screams were silenced.
Axiom and Brazza came back into the tent then. Their faces were ashen. ‘They are all dead,’ Axiom told Nassar. ‘We won’t need a scribe after all.’
‘Where’s Iskander?’ I asked, but Axiom shook his head.
‘He went to the village,’ he said. ‘He went to see the queen.’
‘Was it …’ I stopped and licked dry lips. ‘Was it treachery? Were they going to fall on us during the night?’
Axiom looked at me, his face dark with pity. ‘No, my lady. They were not. But someone went out of their way to make it seem so.’
‘What happened to the children?’ I asked, sinking to my knees.
‘They are all dead.’ Axiom spoke gently. ‘And all the mercenaries are dead, but it wasn’t Alexander’s soldiers’ doing. When we arrived it was already too late. Now they are saying that the queen sent her own soldiers to protect Iskander. He has gone to thank her.’
‘To thank her?’ I shrieked.
Axiom took one look at my face and caught me before I hit the ground. Nassar ran to fetch Usse who treated me for shock. Strong, sweet tea, lots of blankets. Brazza held my hand and stroked my face. I kept hearing the screams. The screams of the children rose above all the others.
I didn’t sleep that night. Alexander stayed for three days in the queen’s palace. I never set foot in the village. I didn’t want to believe any of the stories I heard. I’d had time to think. I also thought that if I went to the palace there would be nothing to stop me from using Usse’s poison on the queen.
We left that place the last week of April. I was glad to go. I had been ill the entire time we were there. I’d spent four days in bed, shivering uncontrollably, vomiting all the food I ate. It was the stomach flu. Many people caught it. Chiron nearly died from it; babies were very fragile in those days, but Usse pulled him through. Afterwards, Chiron was even crankier and I was weak, my milk thin. It took two weeks to get to the point where I felt capable of riding again.
I hated litters as much as Alexander did.
The mountains were small but sharply steep. The valleys were deep gouges or slashes in the earth. We wound up and down, straight up, and straight down. Sometimes we’d go down into a valley, find it impossible to climb out of, and have to backtrack or walk nearly the whole way around it.
While climbing out of one narrow valley, I could see the end of the army going into it. They were only a stone’s throw away. We could shout to them. The march was extremely difficult, the terrain terrible, and the pace gruelling. Alexander pushed his army along as fast as they could go. Luckily, many mountain streams provided sparkling cold water to drink.
Alexander and I were on uneasy terms. We hadn’t spoken in private since the massacre, and I was nursing a terrible suspicion about just exactly where he’d spent the three nights when he’d gone to thank the queen. I didn’t dare ask him, though. I was afraid of the truth. One lesson I’d learned about that time was that men could do as they liked, whenever they liked, with whomever they liked. It had nothing to do with love or being faithful. Sometimes it was simply best to close your eyes and pretend nothing happened. Alexander would never love me less. Luckily, I didn’t have to close my eyes very often.
Since we’d started marching, my spirits lifted. April snows lay deep in the bottom of the valleys. The high peaks were bathed in bright sunlight. Tall firs and fragrant laurel lined the steep paths. Sometimes we walked at the very summit of the mountains. On both sides of us were sheer drops, but it felt like walking in the clouds, like being with the gods. Ahead of us were the snowy peaks of the Hi
ndu Kush, behind us were the valleys where smoke from the campfires spiralled up to get lost in the porcelain blue sky.
The men were in high spirits. They sang as they marched and told stories and jokes. The idea that they were about to attack an invincible fortress didn’t seem to bother them. I wondered about that, until I asked Usse why he was boiling so much water every evening. He told me he was cooking the herbs to help the soldiers feel happy. Alexander had asked Usse to give them his potion, the one he used to help when he was depressed.
I tried some; I wanted something to lift my spirits. However, it didn’t have any effect on me. Perhaps it was nothing but strong tea, or maybe it only affected men. At any rate, the soldiers drank a cupful every morning and were in a good mood all day long.
The mountains were uninhabited. There was nobody to stop Alexander’s inexorable march towards the fortress. He took advantage of that to send scouts nearly every day. Their mission was to draw maps. They would each take different routes, and then, back in camp, Alexander would have very detailed, nearly three-dimensional maps to guide his army. That’s how he took the fortress.
We camped in a narrow valley completely hidden from view. Even our own soldiers had trouble finding it when they left it to get firewood. Alexander sent his mapmakers out and gave them instructions to draw the entire landscape surrounding the fort with all the measurements, large trees, streams, rocks, anything that he could think of. The men were gone for five days. When they came back Alexander, Craterus, and Ptolemy studied the plans. It took three days and three nights to come up with a plan, but it worked. It was crazy, but it worked.
I sat on the bed, listening. There was nothing else I could do. I suppose that if I’d been an artist I would have been happy there, painting the incredible view. However, I wasn’t an artist, and I soon got bored. I wasn’t an army chief, I didn’t have any great ideas, and I didn’t even think Alexander’s idea would work. How could it? The fort was on a buttress surrounded by a wide valley. The only side we could approach was on the north side. There, a deep chasm separated us from the fortress: a chasm fifty metres wide and thirty metres deep.
I took one look and thought, ‘They’ll never get over that, we may as well go back now.’
Alexander bridged it. It took forty-eight hours of constant work. Whole trees were cut down, pushed into the ravine and piles of earth dumped over them. Then a makeshift platform was built onto it and pushed halfway across the chasm, and catapults set up. Alexander started lobbing stones at the fortress while his men scaled the high walls and swarmed into the fortress.
The defenders had never thought that their citadel could fall, and so they waited, like rabbits blinded in the headlights of a car, staring in horrified fascination as Alexander and his men stormed the fort.
I stayed in the tent. I could see the whole fight from my vantage point. When I was sure Alexander wasn’t wounded and the battle was won, I unclenched my fists. It hadn’t lasted long. From across the ravine I saw a fire being lit. Men began putting down their weapons and the doctors hurried over the bridge.
I went to the fort. The defenders had been put to death, and I don’t think Alexander would have let me come had there been any danger. I walked across a rickety catwalk, the one Alexander’s army had set up spanning the remaining twenty metres. It was made of rope and sticks and swayed in the wind, making me feel very much like a kite. I was glad to reach forward, grasp the rough stone parapet, and climb into the fort.
Everywhere I could see enemy soldiers lying in puddles of blood, sprawled in the graceless throes of death. I didn’t look at the dead though, I searched for the children. I wanted to greet the children who would go back and play with Paul. I would tell them about him. I would ask them to tell him I loved him. I’d forgotten to say that before I left. My eyes filled with tears. A mist obscured my vision.
I turned a corner and came to a large common. There, I was surprised to see a table in the shade of a large cypress tree. At the table sat five children, their backs to me. They were sitting according to size, the tallest on my left, the smallest on my right. They took no notice of the carnage around them. They seemed to be concentrating on the food laid out before them. I thought it cruel to leave those poor children alone. There was no one around them and night was falling. They must be petrified with fear.
I rushed forward, calling to them. ‘Children, children! Don’t be afraid! Sharwah sent us. We’ll bring you back to your families!’
Alexander caught my arm. I hadn’t seen him coming. He moved so quickly. ‘No, Ashley, no.’ His voice was low. He was whispering.
‘Let go of me,’ I said. ‘And congratulations by the way; I’m amazed about the fight, really. It was incredible.’ I struggled to free my arm, not looking at his face. Tears wet my cheeks and I felt out of breath. ‘I have to tell them about Paul!’
‘Ashley.’
There was something in his voice. I stopped struggling and turned to him. His expression was desolate. Frowning uncertainly I let myself be drawn away from the tree. ‘Wait, Alexander, I have to go and see the children. They must be so frightened. Why isn’t anyone with them?’ My voice rose. My heart knew what my brain refused to admit.
Alexander didn’t answer. He gathered me into his arms. I was glad to see he was unharmed. He only had a scratch on one arm. Blood pearled along it then dripped slowly off his wrist.
‘This is the first time you’ve touched me since you went to see that queen,’ I told him in a conversational tone. ‘Was it such a terrible experience?’ I was surprised to hear a little gasp between my words. I was sure I felt fine. I just couldn’t breathe, that’s all.
He didn’t answer, but a shudder ran through his body. His arms tightened around me. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘We came too late.’
I twisted my head around and stared.
The sinister stillness of the children chilled me.
The children Alexander wanted to save had been sacrificed on an altar in the centre of the fort.
Alexander didn’t want me to see but I insisted. Some perverse desire to see what had happened seized me. I still don’t know why I broke away and walked to the table. This time Alexander didn’t stop me. He hesitated a second and then followed.
I walked slowly towards the children. The breeze lifted their hair, but otherwise they were immobile. When I got close enough to see that they were dead, I still didn’t stop. It was as if the horror wasn’t enough. I had to stare it in the face. I had to know.
They had been sacrificed on the stone altar and then propped up in front of a feast.
The table, the chairs, and even the food were made of straw. It was an elaborate, macabre preparation for a sacrificial fire. Burnt offerings indeed. Five faces gazed at me with unseeing eyes. Their throats had been cut, giving them wide red smiles. They had been dressed in white linen. My hands started to shake. I went to the children and I touched them on their cheeks.
‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered, ‘so very sorry.’ I knelt in front of the smallest child and took her cold hand. It was still limp. We’d almost made it in time. Fleeting warmth remained. I pressed her hand to my lips. ‘Oh, sweet baby,’ I breathed.
I reached up and closed her eyes. Then I closed the other children’s eyes. Now they were sleeping.
Alexander didn’t touch me but I heard his breathing behind me. In the back of my mind I registered the fact that he was having a bad asthma attack. That the sun had set. That the children had straw plaited into their hair, and that the smallest child was a girl. My nose started to bleed. I put my hands over my face. They were icy cold.
My vision blurred. Alexander’s breathing grew worse.
We might have stood there for hours if Usse hadn’t come looking for us. Chiron was hungry and was wailing, a thin cry that I heard all the way over the chasm. Usse took Alexander’s shoulder and urged him towards the tent. ‘Come, my lady,’ he said to me. I followed. There was
nothing else I wanted to see. I hadn’t wanted to see this.
Chapter Nine
I was glad Onesicrite wasn’t with us. The insufferable Athenian journalist would have written that Alexander killed the whole garrison to avenge the Greeks. He wouldn’t have mentioned the children.
We sent their bodies back to the valley to be buried. Alexander had wooden coffins made for them, five coffins of various sizes. The smallest one had a flower carved on it.
Usse gave me a drink. It was hot, spicy wine and took some of the edge off my shock. I still couldn’t believe what I’d seen. Why hadn’t I stayed behind, safely in the tent? Oh no, I had to go and look. My journalist training made me want to go see what happened. But nothing would ever take the nightmares away.
Alexander caught me as I shot out of bed. He lunged across the covers and caught me around the middle. His hand clamped over my mouth, muffling my screams, and he pressed my face to his chest. His arms held me tightly until I was completely awake.
‘I see them too,’ he said. ‘I wish you hadn’t.’
I buried my face in his neck and managed to stop shaking. ‘I never saw anything so horrifying.’
‘I’ve seen worse,’ he said simply.
We were whispering. The curtains were drawn. The trees leaned in the hard wind and their branches made shadows that whipped across the tent. Outside, the storm passed by slowly. Lightning flickered, thunder growled softly a moment later. Alexander held me, even after I stopped trembling. He pressed his forehead against my shoulder.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’ I asked him.
‘I don’t know.’ He didn’t usually sound so unsure of himself. I drew a deep breath and then guessed.
‘Cxious?’
He flinched as if I’d struck him. Now it was my turn to tighten my arms. ‘Plexis’s brother. Yes, that’s who I was thinking of.’
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